Yellow Snow

We have a large back porch with seven sliding glass doors. We've been putting 1x1 wood sticks in the tracks at night for security. It's impossible to slide the doors open now. I found out how impossible today.

I recently painted some baseboard and shoe mold which I had atop a couple of horses in the living room. Today I the put all the dried wood on the living room floor and took the horses out on the deck to use for outside work when the weather broke. It was about twenty-five degrees outside.

I took the horses outside and as I slid the door shut I heard the 1x1 wood piece fall from where it had been propped up. I looked and saw the stick had fallen in the track, locking me outside in the cold. I immediately had to pee of course and as I went in the great outdoors on the snow I thought of that stupid Zappa song and couldn't get it out of my head.

I tried prying the door up...didn't work. I tried the front door we never use. It was locked. I went to Bill's across the circle. I think we had given him a key to our front door sometime past. No, Bill didn't have a key. I could've call wife but I know she had given her key to one of the girls.

I thought of the windows and knew there was one that wasn't latched on the inside and the storm window was stuck open. AHA! Thank God I'd never gotten around to repair it. I got a ladder and screwdriver out of the shed and took out the storm window. Wife had two antique depression glasses sitting on the window ledge.

I could move the top window down just enough to get my arm through to bend my elbow. One of the glasses fell and by some miracle it didn't break when it fell into the kitchen sink. I could just barely grasp the other glass and took it out. I think I'd rather die of hyperthermia than face my wife with broken antique in hand.

I was half way in the small window when a Louisville Metro Police cruiser pulled up in our driveway. A week ago we had called and requested extra patrols in our Circle because some punk had been rummaging through our vehicles at night. (Middletown aint the sleepy suburb it used to be) They had a few questions to ask me. I told them the story and he kind of smiled and took off.

I'm grateful for Louisville Gas & Electric and the Louisville Metro Police Department. After I warmed up I went to the local locksmith and made two copies of the front door key and I'm having new locks installed on the sliding glass door entrance and do away with those 1x1's.

Frank Zappa 'Don't Eat the Yellow Snow' 1974